Snap Tin

A colloquialism for ‘lunch’ in the East Midlands and parts of Yorkshire is ‘snap’. Possibly a reference to the specially D shaped metal ‘snap tins’ that miners used to take their food in underground. (Miners in the North East refer to their lunch as ‘bait’, deriving from Old Norse language ‘beita’, meaning food). Down the mine, tea breaks were not taken at a specific time as they are in other industries, but twenty minutes could be taken at an agreed time for water and sandwichs. This was referred to as snap time.

Fig 1.  ACME Miners Snap Tin.  Photo Credit – MuBu Miner.

In the absence of running water, drinks were transported in a metal canteen called a ‘Dudley’. Soiled fingers meant that coal dust and oil mixed with the food and dirty bread-crusts were discarded. The hot working environment limited the type of food that would stay fresh underground: The jam sandwich, and in times past bread and dripping, became a staple ingredient of the pit-man’s diet.

Fig 2.  Miners Snap Tin and Jam Sandwiches known as Door Stoppers!  Photo Credit – MuBu Miner.

Snap breaks offered a forum for debate, an opportunity for older miners to instruct youngsters on the ways of the world. Life-skills including subjects as diverse as managing money, relationships, sport, sex, religion, trade unions and politics.

‘Leg-pulling’ and camaraderie among the men was common practice. A Facebook post from a former mineworker describes how Electricians working on the pit top would secretly solder the snap tins of trainee miners so that they couldn’t be opened. Another miner joked that snap tins in France were ‘over three-feet in length and guaranteed to keep your baguette dry’. Joking aside, the snap break played an important role in the socialisation of workers. The ubiquitous snap tin appears in several acclaimed literary works about life in mining communities, including; George Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937), G.A.W. Tomlinson’s Coal Miner (1938) and Barry Hines’ ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’ (1968) – which was subsequently made into a feature film (‘Kes’ – Woodfall Films) by Ken Loach in 1969.

Fig 3.  Miners having snap at Brinsley Colliery circa 1913. Photo Credit – Rev Cobb collection. 

Fig 4.  Miners Snap Time.  Photo Credit – Coal Authority.

Snap Tin Stories

Swopping Snap

One day two coalface workers decided to swop their snap, they were fed up having the same snap, day in day out. One opened his mates snap tin; bread, dripping and beetroot. Then, the other miner opened his mates snap tin; bread, dripping and beetroot! 

Source: Coal in the Blood: An East Midlands Coal Mining Anthology, edited by Natalie Braber and David Amos, (2021), p.66.

Fig 5.  Miners having their snap in the gate.

Nomper Joe and the Sardines

I had been out the night before with Phez, Birky and one or two more of the lads from the Miners Arms and was a bit hung over. I was late getting up, almost overlaying, and so didn’t have time to pack a bit of snap. Instead I grabbed a tin of sardines in oil and as little cocktail fork to eat them with and rushed off to the pit.

During the first half of the shift, I had tried a couple of chews of bacca (chewing tobacco), but unlike me was unable to face one. Anyway, there we were, Joe, an older miner, and me sat in this manhole (refuge hole), with Jack sitting in the next one. I sat here leaning on a wood prop feeling sorry for myself as Joe went through his ritual of taking his teeth out to eat his snap. Joe started to tackle his first sandwich and I decided to try and eat the sardines. I peeled the lid back and with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm, got the cocktail fork, stabbed a sardine and attempted to eat it. Somehow after a while, I managed to swallow it, but no way could I face another. I said to Joe “Do you want these sardines”? He said“Yes, giz um if yu don’t want u’m”  I replied “No, I can’t face e’m” and gave Joe the tin. “Do you want the fork as well to eat u’m with” I asked and Joe replied “Arh, giz it”

I was half watching Joe, he got a sandwich out, opened it and carefully placed a sardine into it. He did this a couple of times and I was thinking to myself I wonder what he’s got in his snap. What would go with sardines, I thought fish paste, or maybe even cheese or ham. As he started to load up the third sandwich, my curiosity got the better of me and asked what he had on his bread, He replied “Strawberry jam youth”!  I shot out of the manhole and ‘boffed my rops up’ (was sick) but strangely was feeling okay after ten minutes and later managed a chew of bacca.

Ray Caunt, ‘Memories of Sutton Colliery 1968-1989’, (2021), p.39-40.

Fig 6.  Young mining lad in the early 20th century coming off the cage at the end of the shift with his dudley around his neck and snap tin in his hand.

French miners ‘snap tins’

One old miner, a real character, used to explain the operation of a ‘snap tin’ to mining trainees on Close Personnel Supervision (CPS) in their early days of pit training. CPS was designed to get you your pit-sense. The old miner went through the process of why the snap tin ‘snapped’ together, how it kept mice (pit-moggies) from getting to your snap and why it was shaped like it was. ACME was one of the companies who made the snap tins.

Most lads from mining families were familiar with snap tins from a very early age. Their dads owned one and they were a regular feature about the house as you grew up in pit communities. However, few thought about why the snap tin was curved at one end, with the handle at the other. The handle end was obvious; it was hanging the snap tin up on a strut or hook in the pit and carrying it on your belt. But why was the other end of the snap tin curved in a half-moon shape?

The old miner would get the trainees to try and think about why the curved end of the snap tin was so shaped. Eventually when the trainee gave-up he would explain the process of how bread was made at home in the olden days, in small tins on the range, it would rise in the oven to the shape of a Hovis loaf. It was so obvious; the snap tins were made to fit the shape of the bread.

Then the old miner would then deliver the sucker punch to the young trainee;

‘You ought to see French miners’ snap tins, they’re four feet long!’

David Amos

Source: ‘Coal in the Blood: An East Midlands Coal Mining Anthology’, edited by Natalie Braber and David Amos, (2021), p.67.

Fig 7.  Miners at the end of their shift, two of them with their snap tins attached to their belts. Photo Credit – Coal Authority

Snap Time checkmate

Snap time was a time to have some social interaction whilst it was quiet and have a talk about all manner of subjects. On one such occasion, one of the lads asked a fitter what he had got for his snap. He replied cheese yet again. He went on to tell everyone the only meal his wife ever prepared always consisted of cheese. One of the lads suggested buying her a cook book to see if she might cook something else, which he did. Some weeks later at snap time the fitter opened his snap box to find a wrapped gift from his wife. He duly opened it to find a book titled, ‘50 ways to improve your sex life’!

Source: Coal, Dust and Community: A History of North Derbyshire’s Mining Industry by Kevin Kew, (2025), p.86.

Fig 8: Former Annesley miner, David Amos (left) as guest on the John Holmes Show on BBC Radio Nottingham, 12th November 2017.

A Scotch Egg at Snap Time!

At the moment of easing open your snap tin, conversation would turn to “What’s she packed for you today?”  For most it was processed cheese or ham, but I was newly married and the men would rib me over the delicacies Kate had packed. My mother had told Kate I was a fan of scotch eggs, and one day she prepared a surprise for me. Although she did add, “Ask your mother how she makes the sausage meat stick to the egg”.

When I opened my snap tin, I proudly showed off my home-made scotch egg and the face team were in awe of my loving wife’s gift. But I had a shock coming. When I bit through the sausage meat into the egg, she hadn’t removed the shell. Now these men were jealous of what Kate had prepared and I wasn’t going to let her down, so without comment I ate the scotch-egg, shell and all!  When I returned home, I commented to Kate, “By the way, I’ve found out why the sausage meat doesn’t stick to the egg”.

Source: John Holmes, This is the BBC Holmes Service, (2020), p.60-61.

Fig 9.  Resin model of miners having their snap.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, snap tins were eventually superseded by plastic ‘Tupperware’ style lunch boxes. Along with a plastic water bottle they were usually carried in a small haversack called a snap bag.

Pit Talk Dictionary – Snap

Snap – Food / lunch. This was probably the one word named by all miners where everyone was in agreement.

Snap-Time – Food break.

Snap Bag – Bag to put snap in.

Snap box / tin  – Box to put your snap in; this could be metal or plastic and tended to have a particular shape. Often made by ACME, and these ones would always be metal.

Snap Cabin – Area where men would eat their food on the surface.

Snap Ticket – food to be sent down by the canteen for men working overtime.

Source: ‘Pit Talk: Coal Miner’s Dialect of the East Midlands’ by Natalie Braber, Claire Ashmore and Suzy Harrison.

Snap Tin – the movie

In 2013 the Mining Heritage Team worked with students from Confetti College, Nottingham, to create a short film-drama entitled ‘Snap Tin’. The screenplay by Paul Fillingham is based on the book ‘Coal Miners’ by G.A.W. Tomlinson (c1930). Chapter VII entitled ‘Strike’ centres around a snap break in which a trainee miner ‘has his arguments smashed…one-by-one by an older miner, to the amusement of the other men’.

Filmed by Joel Footè, and directed by Dr David Amos, the story is interpreted through unique footage shot underground at Caphouse Colliery, Wakefield (The National Coal Mining Museum for England) and domestic scenes, filmed at the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum, Eastwood, Notts.